


The Past (Is a Grotesque Animal)

by steevee



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Animal Death, Car Accidents, Gen, General Lawlessness, Guns, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mild Gore, baby's first fic since tweendom..........
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-12-19 07:18:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11892756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steevee/pseuds/steevee
Summary: A bunch of short Toki-centric drabbles, mostly using one word prompts.Now with some new stuff from my tumblr!





	1. Passport

"Runke, please." He begged, hands clasped together over the counter of _Drep Du Selv_. "You have to know somebody. I've got to get out of here."

Runke looked back at him from behind corpse paint, unaffected. Toki knew this was a ruse; behind the attitude he was a nice guy, really. But for good measure, he threw on the puppy dog eyes and waited.

"...I might know someone."

"Thank you, Runke!" Toki practically leapt over the counter top with joy, clasping the black metal musician by the shoulders. "I won't forget this, I promise! When I'm a famous guitarist, I'll come back and visit you for sure!"

 


	2. Green

Summer in this place was piss yellow and wilting. The heat tinged everything dead and brown, sizzled on the streets and belabored Toki's breath with dense humidity. During the day he combed coffee-shops and local bulletins for the few English keywords he knew-  _band, musician, guitar_ \- in search of job postings.

As soon as the heat began to fade, he'd set up on the sidewalk with the dingy Flying V he'd scored from a nearby pawn shop and pluck the strings until it was too dark to see. And at night, he'd cower in the corner of a hotel parking lot until he slept.

He loved every second of it with raw spite, as if the more he could enjoy this sweltering paved-over marsh, the less hold Norway had over him. He would never see its winters again, nor anything even close. Not here.

Not in Florida.


	3. Happiest

  
Toki was happiest when he was working. That was how it was supposed to be, how a good son was supposed to feel. Though the air was bitter and cold and tore at him through his shirt, the satisfaction of knowing this warmed him from the chest out. He was doing what God wanted him to do. What _far_ and _mor_ wanted him to do.

And though God (he hoped) might not mind if he daydreamed, he knew his parents would. But how could he not? Pushing an old log for hours occupied all his physical strength, but left his mind harrowingly empty.

So to fill it he would often come up with stories for himself. Of the woodland animals that he sometimes saw, the playful rabbit or soaring hawk. Sometimes they had other friends, real or imagined, dragons and sea creatures and tigers.

Then there were stories he would never confess, but indulged in nonetheless. Like of the clown from the brightly lit television display, who would leap out of his prismatic stage and take Toki by hand in a blaze of song and dance.

In his mind they twirled along a rotating rainbow dais, tiled in fluorescent neons. He hummed along to the imaginary tune, hop-skipping into the weight of the log in front of him.

It gave a sickening crack.

Toki stopped, the momentum of the wheel sending him backwards into the spoke behind him as he watched it splinter all the way up the trunk and sever it from the wheel entirely. The entire contraption groaned and pitched left as it balanced out, careening Toki forward onto his hands and knees in a rut of snow.

His father's footsteps were not far behind.


	4. Tyranny

This was it. He'd had all he could take of Skwisgaar for tonight-- no, for a lifetime. Fuck him, and fuck him forever. Why would he even let Toki in the band if his only intention was to lord over him eternally? Or was that it? Did that asshole just expect him to sit there like a punching bag, hammering out rhythms to his melodies and grinning when Skwisgaar offered him nothing in return except lofty disapproval?

Well, dildos to _that_. He was going to get his revenge. And it was going to be fucking glorious.


	5. Wound

"It's healing really well," Abigail praised in her gentle, warm voice. She made it sound like an accomplishment. Like she was going to hand him a banana sticker. _You're doing so well, Toki, great job._

Toki knew that couldn't be true. He could feel the gash in his side festering as plainly as he could feel his nose. It crawled, or something crawled in it- maggots. They gnawed, burying their ugly heads deep into the aching gore. He had a furious urge to scratch at the spot and to rip and tear until the wriggling sensation stopped, but Abigail, sensing this somehow, pinned his hand to her side.  

For the nth time in their imprisonment, Toki keened pathetically into her chest and surrendered.


	6. Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Switchin' it up a little with some Skwisgaar.

Immediately, Skwisgaar had misgivings about his decision.

They began as soon as the words "I want you in this band" left his mouth and the kid- this kid, who had matched his energy and challenged it in all the right ways- dropped his guitar and its case like a sack of bricks. In the split second between Skwisgaar wincing and opening his eyes again, the boy's arms were tight around him in a vice grip of sheer affection.

Odin, this was going to be a challenge.

The boy hadn't talked all the way back to the apartment, except to tell them that he had nowhere else to go, and to agree to whatever Nathan and Pickles said. That was fine, none of them were strangers to cramming five people in a dingy apartment. And if the Nord was as timid a roommate as he was a conversational partner, Skwisgaar was sure it'd be no sweat off his back.

That all changed as soon as Skwisgaar shut the door to _their_ (formerly his, and his mind cringed at that) room. Toki- for that was his name, as much as Skwisgaar's mind kept repeating _boy, teenager, literal child off the street_ \- opened his mouth and a stream of excited Norwegian poured out. He babbled in a lilting and ceaseless onslaught faster than Skwisgaar could make out what he was saying.

"--'m so excited, never-- guitar like that--" He chirped on and on like a starving baby bird, perched on Skwisgaar's mattress with his legs crossed. "I promise-- can do it right--"

" _Ja,_ " Skwisgaar got exactly one syllable in before Toki's chatter overwhelmed him again and he was forced into silence. Stunned. Toki's excitement radiated off of him, and it ran through the air and the floor and into Skwisgaar like a live wire. Part of him would give into the energy, maybe, if he were twelve again and just as naive as the ratty teenager in front of him. But for now, every ounce of his mind screeched out in protest.

For him, bringing home the human embodiment of a natural disaster was not an unusual thing. But typically they were ladies, swampy hurricanes composed of turbulence, alcohol, and lust, and typically they would leave in the morning after having their fill of his dick. Toki, on the other hand, promised to be something else entirely. A hailstorm that battered his ears with each plinking little projectile, until the cascade of ice would have him broken down entirely. A petty annoyance with the unsettling promise of yielding much, much more.

All Skwisgaar could do was wonder was what the hell he'd let into his bedroom now, and to ignore the nag in his gut that told him this storm would be a long time passing.


	7. Book

Toki liked to look at the kittens in the petstore. Often he would make his way behind the glass doors just so he could jam his fingers through the metal cage bars and let the cats rub up against them, and today was no exception. As was usual he'd gotten an early start, waking up hours ahead of the other guys, who were surely still asleep even though it was almost lunchtime. They were just like these kittens, he mused while a tiny dusky gray cat rolled over in its bed. Always snoozing, no need for anything or anybody else. He waggled his fingertips in front of the kitten's whiskers, just a hair away from touching its cheek, but it simply yawned and closed its eyes. The bars bit into his hand too hard to reach any further, so Toki moved on to the cage above.

While he was in the middle of letting a skinny tabby-cat gnaw on his pointer finger, the door behind him creaked open.

"Are you looking to adopt?" The employee, a woman, gently broke him out of his distraction. Toki balked at her for a second and rolled the thought around in his mind. He _could_ , if he wanted to. He could have all of the cats here, and then all the cats in the world. He knew that. Instead, he shook his head and offered the employee a smile.  
  
"Nopes, not really," he confessed, and she nodded at him. The tabby cat, done grinding its molars into Toki's krillion-dollar fingers, squealed in high falsetto.

While he turned back to the kitten and rubbed his knuckles along the fuzzy underside of its cheek, the employee gave a "well, let me know if you need anything," and let herself out. The door clicked shut behind her and he was alone again, save for the cats and the persistent stink of dirty litter. Arching itself delicately, the tabby pressed its furs through the grate against Toki's palm and tiptoed to the opposite end of the cage where its food bowl sat. Its muzzle disappeared into the pile of kibbles, so Toki pulled his hand back to let it eat.

Little chomps reverberated through the small metal chamber and Toki leaned back, content to watch for now. In the other cages, the cats kept on with their naps.

"Yous the lucky ones," he sighed. "Yous are all gonna gets adopted, I just knows it."

Each one would in time be plucked by a happy family and whisked away to a land of treats and yarn balls and toy mice, just like in the commercials. Okay, maybe not that. Maybe just a regular home, with regular jackoffs who would love them and care for them until they got old and died. A simple life, but a nice one for a kittycat.

Looking at them, something between guilt and envy panged in his chest. Poor Svarthvit. He knew the old cat had been sick, but took him on vacation anyway. And after the doctor's appointment...

* * *

Charles knocked on the door that day while the preparations for Svarthvit's coffin were being made. Toki trudged across the room to answer it, limbs dragging like lead. When he opened the door, Charles' plain face squinted in sympathy.

"I'd like to talk to you," the manager had said, shifting something square and flat in his hands. "If you, ah, have a moment, that is."

Toki obliged, not because he cared, but because it was habit and he had a feeling it would be useless to stop him. Charles stepped in, surveying Toki's bedroom for a second, then placed himself delicately on the edge of the twin bed. His hand patted the blue cotton sheet next to him, but the signal seemed to pass right over Toki's head, so he cleared his throat and continued.

"That was your first pet, was it?" Charles angled. Toki sighed and sunk onto the bed next to him, taking shelter behind his hair.

"Mostlys," he mumbled. There had been "pets" before, mice and wild rabbits and birds with broken wings, but nothing like a real household-variety companion. So he nodded, and to that Charles hummed accordingly.

"I see. Well, it's unfortunate, but these things do happen." He informed him in the same businesslike manner as always. Toki's shoulders wilted. "But in light of that, I, ah... have something for you."

He drew back his hair in time to see Charles turn over the thing he'd been holding; a hardcover book with a blown-up picture of an orange cat on the front. _An Owner's Guide To A Happy Healthy Cat,_ it boasted in an arc across the cover. Toki stared down at the glossy image and tried to draw up any emotion at all.

"Why does I needs this?" He asked slowly. Either Charles was confused, or he was trying to rub it in his face. Both options seemed out of character for him. Was he only trying to point out the obvious? Toki continued, deadpan. "I don't gots a cat no mores."

"Yes, that... certainly is true, isn't it." Despite the words coming out of his mouth, Charles nudged the thin hardback book into Toki's hands as he spoke. "Still, you might consider this helpful, should you, ah. Find yourself in that position in the future. Would hate to repeat history and all."

It took him a while to realize what Charles meant by it, but Toki accepted the gift. And he visited the pet store once a week, each time coming away empty handed.

* * *

Upon returning to Mordhaus that afternoon, Toki found the rest of the band in the hot tub, clamoring over the latest _Dethklok Minute_. Their chatter echoed all the way down the hall, raucous and familiar enough to make him grin by the time he reached them.

"Hey, Tokis!" Skwisgaar called out to him, his hands dancing over his guitar even underwater. "Where you beens all the day? Yous missings a real juicy scoops about how much frozens yogurts Nathan ams eating in a week."

"Listen--" Nathan rumbled from the other end of the tub. Either it was on extra hot today, or he was embarrassed. "Yogurt's healthy, it's got... _bacteria_ 'n shit."

"You mean like the kind that eatsch your flesh?" Murderface squawked. "What'sch healthy about not havin' flesh? I guessch you lose the weight, but- isch it really worth, y'know, bein' a schack of bonesch forever?"

"It ain't that kind, dumbass!" Pickles piped, then paused to consider. "An' y'know, even if it was. That'd be pretty brutal." The others murmured their agreement. As the tub fell silent, Pickles turned his eyes back to Toki and patted at the surface of the water. "What're you waitin' fer, Toki?"

"Ehh," he looked at them a moment and shrugged, passing the tub by on his way to the hall. "You guys haves fun. I gots some readings to do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> svarthvit
> 
> monochrome { adjective }  
> of a photograph, representing colours with shades of gray
> 
> black-and-white { adjective }  
> displaying images in shades of grey/gray  
> using shades of grey/gray


	8. Peach Fuzz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "I have you shoved against the wall but now I can’t stop looking at your mouth" from a tumblr ask meme.

The ceiling of the apartment was dingy, all popcorn’ed and molding in the corner in splotches of yellowy brown. Toki studied it while he caught his breath and found that it was still gross as ever. 

Skwisgaar’s chest rose and fell in ragged time with his, his ribs pressed into Toki’s and pinning him to the wall. His waist felt so thin and delicate in Toki’s arms that he could hardly connect the feeling to his mental image of Skwisgaar. 

Not that his mental image hadn’t changed substantially in the past half hour or so. Mostly, it had gotten more naked. He had new sensations to go along with it too, like Skwisgaar’s mouth searing down his throat and the cold, ticklish absence it left. 

Speaking of which– where had it gone now? He butted Skwisgaar’s cheek with his forehead and whined, which drew up a chuckle from above him. Skwisgaar’s face craned back into view, closeness morphing him into a cyclops that made Toki’s eyes strain. 

For some unfathomable reason, the asshole wasn’t kissing him. Toki leaned in to fix that himself and caught calloused fingerpads on his mouth instead. 

“Holds on.” Skwisgaar told him as he squinted, dragging his thumb from Toki’s lip to the soft skin just above it, and stroked along the corner of his mouth with intense focus. “…Well, would you looks at  _dat_.”  

Toki made a questioning  _hrrrh?_ , face suddenly too warm for words.

“Ams anybody ever teaching you how to shave, Toki?” Skwisgaar asked, smirking curiously from milometers away. 

He blinked. Yes, a long time ago, not that he really wanted to think about it, and not that it’d ever been relevant since. 

Wait. 

“ _REALLYS?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (toki isn't a minor i promise! he's a late bloomer.)


	9. Forget

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "I just told you I liked you but now I’m shy and say “never mind, forget it” and why are you looking at me like that?" from tumblr.

“You’s cute, you know?” Skwisgaar looked at him, lips pursed in a coy smile. 

When Toki didn’t respond, it disappeared, and his eyebrows drew together. “Like, eh…”   
  
Toki didn’t know. He knew Skwisgaar liked him, sure- why else would he choose him to be in the band, and to share a room together when he could’ve easily lumped him in with Murderface or let him sleep on the couch. But… that compliment, the way Skwisgaar stretched himself over their mattress and smiled at him, things just didn’t compute. 

“Like… eurh, how a puppy is cutes. Followsing you around all the times, asking for the attentions constantly, you know–” He floundered, making desperate eye contact. It all just bounced off Toki’s blank expression. His voice went tight. “…Can’t even breathes mine own air anymore, with yous around.” 

“Huh?” Toki picked at the rip in his pants nervously, legs folded under him. He glanced up just in time to catch the tail end of a venomous look, how Skwisgaar’s mouth curled sourly.  

“Gets out of my room,” he growled. He didn’t need to– Toki was already scrambling.


	10. Chase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "We’re hiding from the authorities and it’s very close quarters in here, I can feel your body against mine" from tumblr.

At first, Toki thought the white flash meant he was dead.

Then his lungs kicked back into life and he was coughing, hacking up mouthfuls of chalky dust. Everything around him was still white, a big billowing cloud that swallowed the drivers’ seat where Skwisgaar had been sitting– until his blonde head emerged, looking like a ghost, and Toki laughed out another mouthful of powder. He fought over the airbags, grappling for an arm or shoulder or handful of shirt. 

“Oh shit,” Skwisgaar was gasping over and over again with his big old mouth, fishlike. “Oh,  _shits_.” Toki just laughed, floating on adrenaline and whatever it was they’d done earlier. 

“ _Toki,”_ he gaped at him, hair strewn wildly and pale from all the funny powder. Red and blue lights strobed over his gaunt face, his other words lost in the garble of electronic police banter outside. Toki’s gun was lost to the smoke, so instead he grabbed Skwisgaar by his scrawny shoulders and yanked toward the backseat. 

“They’s  _coming!_ ” He urged in a harsh whisper, focus flitting between the rear window and Skwisgaar’s enormously wide eyes. “We gots to- we gots to hide, before they gets us, they–” And then their eyes met, and his panic fell away into full belly laughter that rocked Skwisgaar’s chest on top of him. 

Everything pounded blue and red and white over their tangle of arms and hair. Skwisgaar writhed, yanking his boot over the console and crashing on top of Toki in the backseat. They slipped into the floor space, Toki’s shoulder crammed beneath the driver’s seat and Skwisgaar akimbo on top of him, driving his chin into Toki’s temple. Their mouths mashed together, tasting like talcum powder and reeking of engine smoke.  
  
At some point the police yanked the door open and they tumbled out into a line of firearms and bright lights, and Toki laughed so hard he thought he would die, if they didn’t shoot him first.

And of course, they didn’t. 


End file.
